by Katherine Dixson
April 2008Many members of Wombourne and District Choral Society, a 100-strong mixed-voice amateur choir in the Midlands, have been singing for years and years, but for others it’s a fresh interest that opens up new horizons and gives tremendous, perhaps even unexpected, satisfaction. Choir Webmaster, Anthony Rathbone, who sings in the bass section, finds the experience reminiscent of when he leant his tall frame to a rowing eight. “The whole is only as good as the sum of the parts. Most of the time one person is slightly out of time, but just occasionally all eight oarsmen get into a rhythm, the boat starts to run smoothly and actually lifts out of the water … the next best thing to flying!” With a slightly unfortunate mixing of the metaphor, he enjoys the fact you can become “totally immersed in singing, and all the other worries of the day seem to disappear”.
Another sporting analogy comes from one of the newest members, Robert Ely, also a bass. “I’m no sportsman, so perhaps the rugby scrum does it for some, but for me there’s no experience to compare with that of making music for the pleasure of others in the company of like-minded singers.” And yet another from Stage Manager, Mike Hayward (you guessed it, a bass): “It’s like playing squash; while you’re singing, you can’t think of anything else … it provides spiritual and emotional release.” Singing is, in fact, physically demanding in its own way, with an emphasis on good breathing techniques, in addition to the intellectual challenges posed. As soprano Linda Cox puts it “my knowledge is stretched and my lungs are too!”
Linda goes on to say “sometimes we come up to standards way beyond our own expectations”, which means that choral singing can give an enormous boost in the self-esteem department. This is especially so for those who aren’t sure what to expect when they join – which they can do without audition, although they need to be fairly confident they can at least hold a tune – and find the learning curve, or the climb up the musical stave, rather a steep one. Lesley Cook, in the alto section, admits to finding it daunting at first. “Everyone else seemed to sight read with ease and I couldn’t even work out which line we were on! However, what a feeling when you’ve mastered it … when you see the conductor grinning back at you happy with the performance … I guess there’s a certain amount of ‘pleasing the teacher’ – even from a 50 year old!” The conductor in question, Musical Director Ian Clarke, comments “I love the music we perform, and if some of that is transmitted to the choir and communicated to the audience, then something worthwhile has been achieved.”
Doug Graham, another bass and ex-Treasurer, jokes that he joined the choir at 44, to find out whether his voice had broken. Age is largely irrelevant. Although it’s always good to welcome younger singers – and why on earth wouldn’t they enjoy the beauty of the classical music that we tackle? – the more elderly contingent are an audible advert for the fact that choral singing is good for you.
Perhaps most important of all is the social aspect. Stella Walsh, an alto and fundraiser for the choir, suggests joining a choir is a great way of meeting people when you move to a new area for work. There’s the feelgood factor, too – “it gives you some good tunes to sing while washing up and driving the car,” says Stella, “but be careful at traffic lights where the driver in front can see you in the rear view mirror.” How about an ambulance-style reverse-print banner across the bonnet to let that driver in front know how to join in if he wants a piece of the action?
Katherine
Dixson
26th
April 2008
700 words
by Katherine
Dixson
20th April 2008
So what’s it’s like being conducted by your little brother,
then? “Terrible!” joked Adrian Clarke,
after our performance of Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle. A family spokeswoman (our MD’s better
half) said it gave Ian an opportunity to have the upper hand for once. Then, more seriously, that it was a welcome
chance to work together, which they hadn’t done for a while.
Back in civvies, Adrian was completely relaxed and looked as though he’d just had a stroll in the park rather than a leading role in a demanding choral work. His rich baritone was delivered with true professionalism and appeared as effortless to produce as it was to listen to.
Sarah Pring – incidentally Adrian’s wife – won the audience over with her command of the mezzo-soprano role. She told me the Agnus Dei is her favourite of all arias, and it showed.
Yet another member of the Clarke clan, Ian’s daughter Amy, made not a sound on stage, capably page-turning for our own rehearsal accompanist, Beryl Beech, at the piano. Behind them, Simon Ball did battle with a temperamental harmonium … and won. With the instrument wedged in place, to prevent a moving performance of the wrong sort, Simon commented on the warmth of the atmosphere created by our choir in the otherwise chilly church.
Soprano Faye Hart lit up the church with a voice and smile as bright as her beautiful cerise dress. Tenor Justin Lavender felt he was in safe hands with us. Not, perhaps, because we are famed (yet?) as a choir to be reckoned with, but because his next engagement is at an open-air concert in, of all places, Harare. I’m sure we all wish him well, and hope he – and all our soloists – will join us again.
As for the choral contributions, the hard work seemed to have paid off. It might not have been technically 100% accurate – I have a sneaky suspicion we sopranos went astray (then found our way back) in Et Resurrexit – but from within the body of the choir, it felt like we were offering something dynamic, with shape, phrasing and meaning. I’d even go so far as to call the Cum Sancto Spiritu electrifying, and would gladly have sung that movement all over again!
Sadly I didn’t get to speak to principal pianist, Samantha Carrasco, but her dazzling display spoke volumes. My daughter – who was envious in equal measure of the press photographer’s Nikon and Samantha’s Steinway – went all starry-eyed and vowed to do more practice. My mother pronounced the concert well worth the trip from Liverpool. My own better half was so impressed he forgot to think about Cardiff City’s forthcoming FA Cup Final match for a couple of hours. And even my son, who would rather have been watching Doctor Who, expressed approval with his Spanish phrase of the moment: “muy bien”. Or, as it was a Latin Mass, should that be “bonissima”?
As it happened, we could have done with a bit more “lumen de lumine”. Was the dim lighting in the chancel a secret ploy to encourage learning the work by heart? Because towards the end of the performance, looking at the music was sheer guesswork as far as I was concerned. No matter – looking up reaped far better results and rewards anyway, not least a sense of the enthusiastic engagement of the audience. To those who didn’t make it, perhaps we could quote a mangled Specsavers’ strapline: should’ve gone to the concert.
Having your cake and eating it?
by Katherine Dixson, December 2007
There’s been a certain sense of déja vu this year at choir, and not just because of our successful return exchange visit to Orléans. When it was announced that the autumn term would see us preparing for Handel’s Messiah, it was like coming full circle for me, as the oratorio had provided my debut with the choir, back in 1999.
At that stage, I was extremely inexperienced in choral singing. The challenges involved in following the score and learning to take account of the various facets of tuning, timing, dynamics, diction, to name but a few, quickly turned it into the most absorbing hobby. During those two hours once a week at rehearsal, all other distractions melted into oblivion as we journeyed towards performance standard. I remember feeling suitably impressed that I’d made technical progress, if only to equip me for the even greater challenge of our millennium performance of Verdi’s Requiem the following term.
Our current Musical Director prefaced this term’s rehearsals with the remark that ‘most people think they know the Messiah’. Rather than indicating concern for our spiritual welfare, I took this to imply a healthy scepticism as to our musical accuracy, and I knew he’d be looking for perfection. Sure enough, week in, week out, we were drilled in keeping the pitch up, not singing through the rests, supporting all those adorable semiquaver runs with diaphragm control, mastering the power of the short ‘s’ and unanimously preparing and exaggerating every other consonant within earshot. In the pursuit of real teamwork, we were encouraged to listen to one another as the phrases were passed around the various voices, intermingling like the ingredients of a Christmas cake – with the same rich results.
Improved technique was one thing – this time around I also found myself making a significantly deeper emotional response to the music (seeing off the old saying ‘familiarity breeds contempt’?) and hopefully this was communicated in performance. After all the hard work it was a bonus to have the chance to stage two concerts, like two bites of the cherry (or the Christmas cake). The intimacy of the organ accompaniment suited the picturesque setting of St Mary & St Chad in Brewood, bedecked with post-wedding ivory roses and crimson ribbons; in the acoustic heaven of St John’s in the Square, Wolverhampton, the choir was supported admirably by the Orchestra da Chiesa. A highlight for me was a fine rendition of The Trumpet Shall Sound, with triumphant instrumental music complementing the rich baritone of Philip Smith, who, according to our programme notes, had previously been National Otter Surveyor of England. Conservation’s loss was music’s gain.
A further bonus was that both audiences packed the venues and responded with such warmth. The ladies sitting in front of my family were so eager to stand for the Hallelujah Chorus that we half expected to see starting blocks installed in the pew. The sustained chords at the end of some of the movements were … well … moving (although I’m not convinced they’re called movements in an oratorio – answers on an email, please). Perhaps neither performance was completely faultless – it would take another Christmas miracle to perfect my contribution to the 2nd soprano line, for example – but at least we all know the Messiah a little better now, musically and/or spiritually.
MD Ian Clarke’s assessment of the ‘Amen’ as ‘spine-tingling’ was the icing on the cake.
by Lesley Cook
November 2007
Having just returned from a stay in Barcelona, I thought I’d recommend two amazing musical experiences, should you be in this wonderful city.
Firstly my husband and I were able on our first morning to buy tickets for the concert that night in the Palau de Musica Catalana. Recommended by Phillippa in the Alto section, this concert hall is a World Heritage building because of its striking “modernisme” style architecture and as we sat below the flying hooves of a stone horse, surrounded by mosaics, tiles and stained glass we could see why. (There are also bookable guided tours in English every day, but they fill up very quickly.)
The tickets in the upper tier were not cheap but the hall was full. (Try to get a seat towards the middle of the hall for best sight lines) Sir John Eliot Gardiner seemed delighted with the applause. We had never heard the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique with the Monteverdi choir before but we enjoyed the programme of short choral works by Brahms, Schumann and Mendelssohn followed by Brahms’Symphony number 2. (For those of you who went to the concert in Hereford at the suggestion of David Parkes, do you remember the viola player with the expressive face? He was on the front desk!)
Some people seemed to have left at the interval, which may not be surprising since the concert began at 9pm and finished at 11:30pm! Luckily we didn’t have far to walk back to the hotel. By the way you do get a free programme, but Catalan is quite tricky to decipher.
Our second musical experience was a trip by train and then rack railway up into the mountains to the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat. There is a famous boys’ choir school based here who sing every Sunday in the Basilica – but this was Tuesday. However it must have been our lucky day for as we sat marvelling at the church, an older choir entered and sang four pieces including “Ave Verum Corpus” by Byrd which you will remember from our first visit to France and then Rutter’s “The Lord Bless You and Keep You”. Wonderful! They were followed by the boys’choir in traditional white surplices who also sang beautifully.
Montserrat is very much geared up to the tourist trade but in a tasteful way! It is a beautiful and inspiring place to visit. Part of the fun is getting there. You could go on a coach trip, but it is more exciting to make your own way by the very efficient public transport system. From the tourist information office you can buy a Tot Monserrat card for 31.50 euros. This includes metro to station, rail, rack railway or cable car to the monastery, two funicular rides further up the mountain side, a three course meal, and admission to audio-visual room and a very good art gallery. So make a day of it!